Bob1961

all my 50+ deer since 1980 have been skinned,deboned and put in plastic shopping bags on a towel in the bottom of my frig the night i've brought them home....then within 2-3 days it's wrapped and in the freezer........bob

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scoobasteve

I am an experianced meat-cutter, and a hunter. If you want to do it right, follow these steps.

1 hang the deer upside down. this keeps any blood or stomach acids from poisoning the meat.

2 skin it while the deer is still warm! it is very hard to skin a cold deer.

3 once skinned, cut the back straps out. make a horizontal cut just above the butt muscle. then pull on the strap while poking at the tendons that hold it into place. repeat said motion on the other side.

4 remove the shoulders. a deer has no bone that connects it to the torso. find the plate and cut along it. the shoulders are what you want to get the ground meat from.

5 cut the gut out and let it fall, then reach in, and cut any tendons that hold the guts in. remove them and disguard.

6 cut the tenderlions out. they can almost be pulled out by hand. they are in the inside of the ribcage and are ready to grill on the day of the hunt.

7. hack the ribs off

8. cut the spine at the hams

9. split the hams with a saw.

10 put all meat on ice for 3 days and thenn butcher the big pieces into stew, roasts, steaks etc...

done deal!

Bob1961

you don't gut it in the field BEFORE you bring it home ??? wow.....................bob

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skeeter 7MM

Bob when moose or elk hunting if we don't have to we won't field dress until the animal is hanging. Reason being we often need to get the animal through some water and/or muck before it can be hung and skinned. I prefer to keep such off my meat, especiallywitha limited amount of clean water at my disposal. If this is not possible the animal is quartered, game bagged and trailered back to camp. In the case of a moose this may mean several hours and trips.

Deer though I FD immediately like most because of:
A) logistics (live in the city, travel, temp, etc)
b) dragging/loading (less hands, not as equipped, etc)

Most would agree that freezing meat vs spoiled meat will be better, so if you don't have the means to hang your meat safely then you must do what you need to do. It is possible to fridge age it after it has been flash frozen.

Bob1961

i know what yer talking bout with the big animals like moose when ya need to float them out of swamps....the guy i replied to didn't say what he does his way with and sounded like he meant deer..................bob

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Buckhunter46755

You can also remove the backstraps, quarter the rest and put it in some coolers with ice. That way you'll have the time to do it without it spoiling. I did my first one of this seaon like that. The temps were in the 80's. I don't cover the quarters with the ice. Put some ice in first then put the meat in. It'll keep it coldlong enough for you to get the job done. I butchered mine for the first time this year since I couldn't afford to pay to have it processed. Here is diagram of the differnt cuts of meat. They can also be found on the internet doing a Google search. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. It only took a few hours and it was a huge doe. You can get a (cheap)butcher kit at Walmart for $20. Then if you want burger you can grind it yourself using 20% pork or beef fat. Or have a shop do it. It's fairly cheap. Hope this helps!

chris

ranger56528

I hang mine in the garage by the hind legs then pull the hide off and if its warm and not going to cut up right away I put bags of ice in the cavity and wrap a tarp around it till the nxt day then butcher/cut it up and put the meat in freezer wrap..
If its cold out I just let it hang for a day to let all the blood go too the neck and head area.....

Pioneer2

In warm weather I skin deer when I get home to allow cooling.I cut them in half,wrap the halves in a game bag[cheese cloth] so it can get good air circulation and place the entire animal in the fridge in the garage.[fridge racks removed] I cut and bone all my meat because the butcher does a poor job IMO leaving the bone in steaks etc.............It has all the flavour of a workboot.A rutty buck is even worse cut that way.Weather permitting I've hung lathered rutty bucks for up to 2 weeks [hide on]frozen solid and when they were processed the meat was as good as a yearling doe.I don't skin a deer if it's cold enough to hand as the meat dries out and requires too much trimming wasting time and meat.Never ate a bad deer yet I cut!I can't say the same for others..............also shot up deer[it happens] need to be skinned and the bloodshot areas removed or allowed to drain.......Seaon just started here in AB Canada and we have done a elk,a moose yeaterday and three WT's.Doing mooseburger and a WT buck today............Harold